


but my martini is still dry (these things never last)

by formerlydf



Series: but my martini is still dry [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/formerlydf/pseuds/formerlydf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No,” Louis says, mostly into Liam’s jaw. “What are you even doing here, working for MI6?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	but my martini is still dry (these things never last)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [words_unravel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_unravel/gifts).



> This is for [Shai](http://archiveofourown.org/users/words_unravel/), because she asked [so nicely.](http://temptmetobelieve.tumblr.com/post/36484179030/totallyimaginaryfriend-temptmetobelieve) Innumerable thanks to [daisysusan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/) not only for her patience with my insanity but also for reading this at the last minute to tell me it didn't suck. (Although she did inform me that if I didn't write a sequel she would probably kill me.)

“Mr. Payne, I presume,” says a voice from about half a foot behind his left ear. Liam doesn’t jump, because he’d heard the footsteps coming, but it’s still a bit of a shock to hear his real name when he’s supposed to be undercover. It’s more of a shock to know that his real name can sound so dirty, like a promise instead of something that just goes on forms.

“It’s Kent, actually,” he corrects as smoothly as he possibly can. “Liam Kent.” He’s got the passport in his wallet to prove it, an institutional photo that looks more like a mugshot — _Nobody’s got a nice passport photo, Liam, you’d stick out_ , Zayn had said with his best innocent look, although Zayn’s never actually looked bad in a picture in his life so what would he know — and pages with a few sparse stamps. Liam Kent has been to America, Spain, Canada. Brazil during the summer holidays before his last year of university; he didn’t want to go at first, but his friends dragged him to Rio, and his parents paid for it. Liam Kent is young, spoiled. Harmless.

Liam Payne can feel the phantom weight of the holsters he’s not allowed to wear as Liam Kent, and is wondering just how concerned he should be that someone at this horribly boring party knows his real name.

“Kent, really?” the voice asks, and Liam turns to see someone sharp and grinning. “It’s nice to meet you, Liam Kent. I’m Louis Lane.”

He _is not_.

You’re never,” Liam blurts.

Louis Lane — it can’t be his real name, that’s not possible — raises his eyebrows and takes out his wallet. “I’m always,” he says, flashing his ID. _Louis Lane_ , it says, male, twenty-four years old, and oh, his photo actually looks decent. That’s just not fair.

It could be a fake, Liam thinks. Kent’s awful passport photo is sat blandly in his pocket, pushed up next to Kent’s wallet and Kent’s receipt for the sandwich he ate for lunch. False information is just a fact of life at this point. He doesn’t exactly want to bring that up, though, because even joking that Lane’s ID might be fake is bound to bring a return suggestion that Liam’s own might be fake, and that’s just not an idea he needs to be planting in anyone’s mind.

“I suppose you are,” Liam concedes. For some reason this makes Lane grin and smooth down Liam’s lapel before sliding off into the crowd. Liam stares after him, baffled, until someone bumps into him and he remembers that he has a job to do. His mark is heading toward the refreshment table, and Liam’s been meaning to grab one of those sausage-stick things.

-

“He knew my name,” Liam says to Zayn three days and two explosions — look, he hadn’t _meant_ to, it just happened — later. They’re at a bar, another on the long list of places Zayn has been dragging Liam to, thanks to his ridiculous belief that Liam doesn’t get out enough. Liam travels to a different country every other week; he’s not sure what more Zayn wants, honestly. “And I told Teasdale about it during my check-in and she told me it was above my clearance level.”

“Above your clearance level?” Zayn repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Liam, you’re a field agent.”

“You have higher clearance than me,” Liam points out. “So does Niall.”

“Niall’s got higher clearance than anyone except Management.” The corners of Zayn’s mouth turn up faintly, the way they always do when he talks about Niall, or talks _to_ Niall, or sees Niall in passing for a split second in the hall. Liam’s not entirely sure whether Zayn is in love with Niall or if it’s just part of the effect that Niall has on people. “You could ask him if he knows.”

“He’d get in trouble,” Liam says. He shouldn’t have brought this up in the first place, probably; he trusts Teasdale, as much as you can trust someone working at your top-secret spy organization. Not as much as he trusts Zayn, obviously, or Niall, but the only people he trusts more than Zayn and Niall are his family, and they think he works in security. “Where is Niall, anyway? It’s been ages.”

Niall’s usually more reliable at getting drinks. Liam doesn’t like shoving through to the bar, and Zayn gets distracted too easily, but when it comes to beer Niall has the same sort of single-minded focus as when he’s working on something in his lab.

“Liam.” Zayn frowns. “If someone not at the Agency knows who you are —“

“Maybe he does work for the Agency,” Liam says. It’s an idea, anyway. He’s not sure why another MI6 agent would have almost broken Liam’s cover, but he works with a lot of very strange people. And Teasdale would have told him, wouldn’t she, if he’d been compromised? “Maybe telling me could have ruined his mission. Or maybe I met him somewhere else and don’t remember.”

“Shouldn’t you be more paranoid?” Zayn demands, and Liam attempts a smile.

“But I’ve got you to be paranoid for me,” he says. Zayn frowns at him and Liam sighs, running his fingers through the condensation rings left from their first round. Zayn worries about Liam, now that they’re not in the field together anymore. Zayn might even worry about Liam as much as Liam worried about Zayn before he got assigned to the home office.

He sighs. Zayn cares, that’s all. “I’ll ask, alright? And I’ll be careful. Swear.”

“You’d better,” Zayn says, and Liam can see Niall swerving through the crowd without spilling the three glasses he’s carrying. Here, in the slightly-too-warm bar, with his best friends dragging him out to keep them company and dozens of other people sat around them talking about their lives, he feels almost too normal to be fretting about spies and missions. Besides, he might never see Lane again.

-

He does. See Lane again, that is, after Teasdale sighed at him and Niall looked genuinely regretful about not being able to tell him anything. If Niall’s saying so, then it must be really important for Liam not to know. Niall doesn’t pay much attention to regulations, for the most part. Somehow he manages to never get into trouble for it, too; Niall says it’s because Management thinks he’s mad, in a harmless sort of way, but Zayn always says that it’s because Niall is a genius and none of them would be able to function without him. Liam thinks they’re probably both right.

But if Teasdale and Niall are both shutting him down, then Liam’s just going to have to let it go, he thinks. Teasdale promised they were handling it. And anyway, where’d he be if he were always questioning orders? He’d never have finished any of his missions.

Which is why he’s more than ready to just ignore Lane and try to stay as far out of his way as possible. He’s supposed to be waiting for his contact; he’s not allowed to let nice-haired classified mysteries ruin his mission.

And then Lane spills wine all down Liam’s front. Of course.

“I’m so sorry,” Lane says, shamelessly groping Liam’s chest with a bar napkin, something papery and useless that’s dissolving into damp shreds across Liam’s shirt. His head is bowed as he frowns at the red stain he’s doing absolutely nothing to contain. “Er, perdão, I mean.”

Liam grabs Lane’s wrist and steps back, gaining a few inches between him and Lane’s fingers. “It’s fine, honest.” It’s not, really, since he’s pretty sure that even the world’s best laundry service — and MI6 employs a fantastic one — isn’t going to be able to get that stain out completely, but that’s really not what Liam is concerned about right now.

“Oh, are you British?” Lane beams, and Liam has no idea what game he’s trying to play. “Fantastic! Except now I feel even worse about your shirt. I think I’m letting the side down and everything. I hear white wine helps, I could splash you some more if you like—“

Anything but more splashing. “We’ve met,” Liam says, going on instinct, which he’ll undoubtedly regret in just a few minutes. It’s just — if Lane isn’t going to be doing him the decency of ignoring him, he wants to know _something_. He wants to get something real from Lane other than the sensation of his fingers through fabric.

Lane looks him up, and down, and up again, far more slowly than seems completely necessary. “You know, somehow I don’t think you’re the kind of person I’d forget.”

Well, that’s just — absurd. Liam has it on good authority that he’s very forgettable. He’s not even sure whether it was supposed to be a compliment or an insult; Lane’s smirk isn’t telling him much, one way or another.

“It’s Mr. Lane, isn’t it?” Liam presses, determined not to let Lane knock him off-balance, and Lane laughs.

“Stark, actually,” he says, his eyes flicking around the room, the hundreds of people in their expensive clothing talking in a blur of different languages. Liam wishes his contact would show up already. He wishes he knew who Lane was. He wishes the early stages of missions were as simple as the later bits, when all the patterns began to come clear. He wishes he weren’t floundering in this conversation. “Louis Stark. You must have me confused with someone else.”

Somehow, Liam really doesn’t think so.

“My mistake,” Liam says shortly. That’s enough faffing about with someone who’s only giving him the runaround; he’s about ready to step out and make a call to Teasdale. His contact can wait five minutes, and surely Teasdale will actually fess up if he tells her that Lane — Stark — Louis, whoever — is here _again_. “I’ll see—“

“I’m really terribly sorry about your shirt,” Louis says cheerfully. “Although if you squint, it almost makes a picture. Looks a bit like a red fish.”

Liam tries not to pause too obviously. “I was thinking more of a German Shepherd, actually,” he says, pulling his shirt away from his chest so he can see it better. He may also be surreptitiously checking for visible bugs, not that he really expects to find any.

“Well, you’re looking upside-down, aren’t you? Definitely a fish. Possibly a monkey, but only one of the small ones. A marmoset or something. And only if it’s curled up.”

“But look, there are the legs,” Liam says, pointing at a splotch that looks absolutely nothing like a leg. “I suppose it doesn’t have to be a German Shepherd. It could be a husky.”

“Well, you can’t have a husky on your shirt forever,” Louis says, smiling. “They’re awful with red wine. Don’t go at all. What do you say I grab a glass of white wine and we go get your top off?”

Liam wants to say yes, which in turn makes him want to say no, but he got a folder at the beginning of this mission and in that folder were the words _red fish/marmoset, German Shepherd/husky_. It looks like he was right, and Louis did work for the Agency all along. He thinks it should make him feel better, knowing that, but for some reason he’s not sure it does; it feels like there’s something hovering inside his chest, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’s not sure what to do with Louis’s smile, or why Louis doesn’t seem to be taking this more seriously.

If Louis is his contact, though, they do need to debrief in private. Er. That is, they need to share the information relevant to their current mission in a secure location where nobody can overhear them. Because that is what secret agents do when they’re on a case together. Um.

“Seems a bit forward,” he says mildly.

“You’re right,” Louis agrees, and Liam remembers belatedly to let go of Louis’s wrist. “I don’t even know your name.”

He has two of Liam’s names already, disposable and permanent. Another one probably can’t make much of a difference. “Liam Rogers,” Liam says.

Louis — Louis Stark, and someone out there must have an awful sense of humor — raises his eyebrows. “You’re never.”

“I’m always,” Liam says, and Louis grins.

-

They’re supposed to exchange information, that’s all. Louis is intermittently undercover as a wealthy British tourist, trying to ferret out the different shreds of a diamond-smuggling scheme based in Lisbon; Liam is on the trail of a Cristoffe Baasholz, part of the diamond ring and a Danish former bank teller whom Management believes might have connections to international terrorist groups. Louis is supposed to pass on everything he’s learned about Baasholz, as well as the names of a few places in the city where Liam might be able to find out more, and Liam is supposed to give Louis updated information from headquarters and laser-cutting cufflinks from Niall. After that, they each walk away — Louis to wherever it is that pretend-rich people go when they’re trying to subtly fish for information, and Liam to find Baasholz.

And yet, somehow, this evening, he still ended up breaking into the rooms of the Turkish Ambassador to Portugal, because one of Louis’s contacts had made a cryptic comment that might possibly have meant that the Ambassador had more reasons to stay in Portugal than just his embassy duties. This sort of thing never happened when Liam worked with Zayn.

“You’re mad,” he hisses when they’re about a mile away from the scene of the crime. “That was completely reckless.”

“But it worked,” Louis says, grinning. Which is true, admittedly; they’d found and photographed the contents of the secret drawer hidden in one of the posts on the Ambassador’s bed, as well as giving Niall and his gang of geniuses remote access to the Embassy computers. Liam isn’t sure how to reconcile the insane man in front of him with the Louis who led him through the airvents and sifted through the Ambassador’s room without disturbing a thing, his face overwritten with narrow-eyed intent as he ran his hands through cabinets and folded stacks of laundry.

“It did,” Liam concedes reluctantly. Louis will probably just take it as encouragement, given that he doesn’t seem to know the meaning of _dis_ couragement. Liam had had several reasoned, considered arguments about why it was pointless and dangerous for them to spend any time together outside the debriefing — er, the secure exchange of relevant information — and then Louis had dragged him on a two-day tour of Lisbon.

Liam is fairly certain that Louis is the least organized, most impetuous spy he’s ever worked with. And he probably could have resisted slightly more forcefully than he had, but — well, it _had_ made sense to let Louis show him Baasholz’s favorite spots, the shady areas of the city and the shady areas disguising themselves as expensive upstanding areas. It was still dangerous, though.

“And you enjoyed it,” Louis continues, taking out the camera to scroll through the pictures. He looks just like any other tourist on the street, now that they’ve changed out of their break-in clothes.

“I did not,” Liam insists, and Louis looks up.

“Liam,” he coos, wrapping an arm around Liam’s neck and rubbing his head. “If you can’t even appreciate a little unauthorized B and E, then what fun is life?”

“I think the fun parts come when you’re not in danger of getting arrested,” Liam says, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s alright, you don’t have to tell me, I know you enjoyed it,” Louis tells him. He squeezes Liam’s neck slightly before letting go. “Want to get dessert? There’s a fantastic bakery a few blocks away.”

So they get a bag full of custard tarts and sit by the water, looking through the Ambassador’s secrets and licking their fingers. This is an awful idea too, Liam thinks, but Louis’s impromptu tour meant that both of them got barely any sleep and he’s too tired to protest anymore. Baasholz is safely within the city, not set to leave for another day and a half at least, and they can’t do much else until Q division gets back to them. Taking their time while they go over the pictures means less chance of them making mistakes.

And it’s sort of nice, anyway. Not that he plans on telling Louis that.

-

It turns out, according to the Ambassador, Niall, and the series of photos on Louis’s camera, that Baasholz might be a bigger part of the diamond ring than anyone thought. Might actually be the leader and founder of the diamond ring, to be precise.

“Guess that means I’m coming with you,” Louis says cheerfully, and Liam says, “What?”

-

Liam wants to take the train to Pamplona, but Louis apparently swears by motorcycle travel, so they split the difference and go separately. It’s fine. Liam prefers taking the train alone, anyway. It gives him time to think, and sleep, and stop being on guard every second.

It’s supposed to, anyway. As it is, the train from Lisbon to Pamplona takes a little more than nine and a half hours, and Liam spends most of those trying to decide whether Louis is juvenile or competent. When he’s not busy with that, he’s hating himself because he was supposed to be getting rest, not obsessing over a fellow field agent like he’s back in college and Louis is some girl he fancies himself in love with. Not that he fancies himself in love with Louis, it’s just —

He wishes Zayn and Niall were here, or that he wasn’t all but on radio silence for this mission. They’re good at keeping him from getting lost in his own mind.

But those two days running around Lisbon had been as frustrating as they were informative; Liam can’t get a handle on Louis, on what parts of his act are just for show and which are sincere, or if any of them _are_ sincere. And Louis is always dragging Liam into things and he never seems to care if they get caught, and even if they have been successful, that’s not how Liam likes to work. He likes to have a plan, he likes to work as far in the shadows as possible, he doesn’t like getting dragged out in public with Louis just because _Everyone who saw us leave at that party assumed we were shagging, and Louis Stark doesn’t do one night stands, Liam, do you want everyone to think I’m a cad?_ He doesn’t like getting laughed at when he tries to point out just how dangerous something is. He doesn’t like that Louis knew his name before he even knew Louis existed.

And then they go to the party. Q branch has insisted that they need remote access to yet another computer, and so on their first night in town Liam ends up sneaking around the closed rooms of yet another mansion while hundreds of people happily get pissed in the front.

At least he’s not in the vents again, he thinks, which is of course when he’s confronted by a security guard. With a gun.

“Qué estás haciendo aquí?” the guard demands. Liam can understand it, at least, but he’s not entirely sure how he’s supposed to respond in his very limited Spanish.

“No habla español?” he tries weakly, holding his hands up and trying to look as unthreatening as an almost six-foot man who regularly goes to the gym possibly can. He’s too far away to disable the man without risking getting shot, and anyway, he doesn’t particularly want to; few things are quite as suspicious as an unconscious guard.

“Pumpkin!” he hears from around the corner. “Boobear, is that your terrible accent I hear?”

Liam can honestly say that this is the very first time in three days that he’s thought, _Thank god, it’s Louis._

The security guard keeps his eyes trained on Liam until Louis floats around the corner, a glass of champagne in each hand and a fond expression on his face. He stops when he sees the guard, his eyes widening, and then he laughs. Liam realises with resignation that this is what he thinks of as Louis at his most impenetrable, all drama and exaggeration and nothing Liam’s been able to understand.

“Oh, no, pumpkin, is this because I asked you to come back here?” he asks with a high-pitched giggle, sounding almost sheepish. He saunters closer to the guard, who keeps a wary eye on both of them. Abruptly he switches into a combination of English and badly-accented Spanish, speaking so quickly that Liam would be surprised if the guard managed to catch all of it. “I’m so sorry, officer, lo siento, very lo siento — oh, this is all my fault, mi culpa, but you know how it is when you’re young and en amor, si, señor? And we were at the party, the fiesta, and he just looks so caliente, atractivo, in his suit —” Louis passes one of the champagne glasses to Liam, who takes it almost automatically, and uses his now-free hand to squeeze Liam’s arm proprietarily. “— and I thought, well, what could it hurt, no es un problema, so I sent him back here to find, you know, somewhere private, privado, and—”

He goes on for at least four minutes, all of his most frustrating behavior condensed and elevated into a single vapid monologue, and Liam is so grateful he’s almost dizzy with it. The guard eventually waves both of them back to the party, holding the champagne glass that Louis pressed on him and looking overwhelmed.

Louis reclaims the second champagne glass from Liam and takes a sip, using it to cover his mouth as he asks in an undertone, “Got it?”

“Yes.” Liam breathes a sigh of relief and, without thinking, murmurs, “I could kiss you.”

Louis slides his arm around Liam’s waist and grins sharply in a way he never would’ve in front of the guard. “Maybe you should.” He pinches the skin at Liam’s hip, and Liam tries not to jump. “Boobear.”

The security guard is behind them, and the door to the ballroom is open in front. Liam thinks for a second and then doesn’t think at all, which is probably why he uses Louis’s arm around his waist to spin him closer, dip him back, and press a light kiss to his lips.

Louis spills his champagne all over the floor.

-

“Sorry,” Liam says later, as they’re wandering through the darkened streets of Pamplona arm in arm. It means Liam has an excuse to lean in close, his mouth against Louis’s ear so nobody else can overhear or read his lips.

“What for?” Louis asks, looking surprised. He leans closer too, whispering warmly into Liam’s cheek. “It’s not your fault he found you. There were people sneaking back there all night long.The guards were probably on alert. Also you’re not allowed to be sorry for the kiss, because that might’ve been the best thing I’ve seen you do yet.”

Liam is a little sorry about the kiss, mostly because it was so impulsive, but that’s not what he’s talking about. “I misjudged you. I’m sorry, it wasn’t fair.”

Louis stops dead in the middle of the street and stares at Liam, which is more than a little conspicuous. Liam tugs at his arm to try to get him moving again, but Louis is surprisingly sturdy for someone who looks so delicate.

“You what?”

Liam feels an embarrassed flush of satisfaction at being able to stun Louis twice in one night. He tries to tamp it down; it’s not very professional. Besides, he doesn’t understand why Louis is so shocked right now. “I misjudged you. I thought you weren’t taking this seriously, but I should’ve known better.” Should’ve known better even in the Turkish Embassy, honestly, the way Louis had turned off all the jokes until they were safely out of danger. He thinks he’s been ignoring it, so desperate to find reasons to disapprove of Louis.

Finally, Louis starts walking. “Don’t apologise for that, either,” he says. “I’ve been awful.”

“You haven’t—”

“No, it’s been on purpose,” Louis says, which shuts Liam up fairly quickly. “Well, mostly on purpose. Some of it was just me.”

“You — really?” Liam asks, unsteady again. “Why?”

“Because sometimes it’s the only way to figure out who you’re working with,” Louis tells him flatly, and then frowns. “And I thought you were a bit of a stick in the mud, so it was fun to wind you up, but then you _apologised_ for it, which just means you’re far too nice. Don’t apologise to me for anything, it’s probably always my fault in the first place.”

“That’s stupid,” Liam protests as quietly as possible. He doesn’t argue with the stick in the mud bit; he’s heard that before, from people who’ve known him longer than Louis. He suspects it’s only due to the combined efforts of Zayn and Niall that he’s loosened up as much as he has over the years. “It can’t always be your fault, you don’t even know what I might be apologising for. What if I _were_ apologising for the kiss? That was my fault.”

“But I dared you,” Louis says.

“But I suggested it.”

“Not seriously.”

“How do you know?” Liam asks, and wow, he’s not even entirely certain what he’s saying anymore. Of course he wasn’t serious, not when an hour ago he didn’t know whether or not he even liked Louis. You don’t want to kiss people when you don’t like them.

Louis presses a faint smile against Liam’s earlobe and says, “Because you don’t seem like you’d want to kiss someone for the first time when you’re both playing a character.” While Liam is still reeling from that one, Louis nudges him sideways, towards a set of glass doors and an unassuming hotel. “This one’s us. Come on, I booked us a room together.”

The only thing Liam can think to say is, “I thought you said I wasn’t serious.”

Louis snorts. “Dirty mind,” he says, elbowing Liam lightly, which Liam is pretty sure means that he's joking. They push through the doors and Louis drags Liam towards the stairwell; Liam’s glad he’s not the only one who defaults away from the elevator. “It’s entirely for the sake of convenience.”

“Convenience,” Liam repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Wasn’t that your argument for buying a motorbike, as well? Despite the fact that you got stuck in traffic for three hours?”

Louis waves the hand not holding onto Liam, as if brushing off this tiny detail. “I’m telling you, spontaneous exit strategies. Not to be beat.”

“How is sharing a hotel room a spontaneous exit strategy?”

“Well, if we need to exit, we can. Spontaneously!” Louis says. “And this way, if we wake up in the middle of the night with any breakthroughs, it’s much easier for us to tell each other. See? Convenient.”

Liam is unconvinced, but he lets it lie as they finish climbing the stairs to their room. It’s not a chore, sharing a room; reminds him a bit of school trips, except grown up and with more guns.

“Besides,” Louis adds, unlocking the door and gesturing Liam inside, “maybe I just wanted to be close to you. Boobear.”

He grins and smacks Liam’s arse as he walks past, and Liam finally lets himself laugh.

-

The next day, Louis says at least three times that he’s going to take his motorbike and meet Liam in a few days, and then he shows up at the railway station while Liam is sitting and waiting for his train. “You’d’ve been lonely without me, don’t lie,” he says, dropping his bags on Liam’s lap, and that’s about that.

-

Well, that’s not _entirely_ that. It’s just — it’s a bit odd, that’s all. Liam usually hates working with a partner. It was easy enough with Zayn because he and Zayn have understood each other from the day they met as horribly junior agents; it’s the reason they’re simultaneously excellent and awful sparring partners, because they know each other too well. Zayn comes off as mysterious, but Liam’s never had trouble figuring out the way his mind worked, and they’ve always been happy just to be quiet together. They would go days sometimes on missions without even talking.

But Zayn is working internal security and intelligence for the home office, dealing with politics and his promotion and Niall — which is great, for the record, because being out in the field was starting to make Zayn look worn out all the time, and Liam worries — and all the other partners Liam’s had have been awful.

Perhaps that’s a bit cruel. They’ve all been perfectly competent agents. Liam just doesn’t feel he ever meshed with them, on a personal level. Or any level, if he’s being honest.

But having Louis around is surprisingly... nice. He’s good at talking to people. Liam’s not bad at that, but his line of expertise is mostly limited to trying to persuade people to stop doing bad things. Louis can talk to anybody about anything. And he’s all business when they’re in the middle of one of his wild plans, which makes it much less reckless than Liam would’ve imagined. He’s got really good instincts, actually. Liam would love to see him and Niall together, just to see what they’d come up with.

And Louis bothers Liam to go to sleep instead of poring over files, which he says is the least he can do when Liam makes sure they both eat. And he talks, too, when they’re in hotel rooms or on trains, which should be some sort of sign because Liam normally hates it when other agents talk a lot during their off-time. It seems like they’re not focusing enough.

“Don’t be stupid,” Louis says when Liam tells him that, both of them stretched out across their train seats with their legs tangled. “You can’t work all the time, Payno, you’ll go mad.”

“I just like to make sure that things go right,” Liam protests, because there have been so many missions lately that were so close to going wrong, situations that could have escalated if he hadn’t been alert. There had been — a lot of people could have died, two months ago in Udine. And the file for his mission to Paraguay almost seemed to suggest that he should be assassinating innocent people for the sake of putting pressure on the criminals who loved them, and it was only because he was so focused on possible ways to ‘take them out’ that he managed to find a decent solution. “We need to be on alert at all hours, you know—”

“How many exits are there in this room?” Louis asks abruptly, and Liam blinks at him. “No, close your eyes, don’t look.”

Liam obligingly closes his eyes. “Door to the hallway, two windows, removable panel over the luggage rack.”

“How many people are in the compartments around us?

Liam frowns, trying to listen. “Er. Two behind us, they’ve been laughing for an hour. I think they’ve got a bottle of something. I saw a family take the one in front of us at the last stop, three adults and three children, and they haven’t opened or closed their door. One across the hall, I think? And there’s one person coming down the hallway.”

“You’re alert, Liam,” Louis says, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, a bit of downtime is good for your brain. Haven’t you ever noticed that you get the best ideas in showers? It’s because you’re relaxed and inspiration flows in and hits you.”

Liam can’t remember the last time he took a shower long enough for him to actually spend much time relaxing. “I don’t think it works like that for me —”

“Yes it does, you just haven’t noticed,” Louis insists. “Now come on, I’ve got a great joke about mushrooms and you didn’t hit me for the last one, so you must have secretly liked it.”

-

Spain turns into Turkey, and it turns out that Baasholz doesn’t so much have terrorist connections as he _is_ terrorist connections. He’s been funneling the diamond profits towards buying stolen aircraft weaponry in order to invade Sweden. Liam is pretty certain that a lot of innocent Scandinavians are going to die soon if they don’t manage to track down his secret base of operations, and through it all Louis saves his jokes for when they’re in private and not working, when Liam feels safe enough to smile without worrying who might be watching.

Also, Louis gets suspended outside the window of a minor government functionary with connections to the Russian mob. It’s a bit of a mess.

“How did this even happen?” Liam hisses from the roof of a neighboring house.

“I think they’re a bit worried about burglars,” Louis says through gritted teeth. The patch of roof directly above him is greased, and he’s trapped in a tiny net hanging from the eaves by a rope. It’s got him curled in on himself, his knees at his shoulders and his hands somewhere by the backs of his thighs. “And whatever this is, my knife didn’t do anything.”

“Louis,” Liam says patiently, putting the last touches on his crude pulley system. And 011 laughed at him for always carrying extra rope in the back of his coat; so there. “Your cufflinks are lasers.”

Louis pauses for a second. “Yes,” he says eventually, with very unconvincing confidence. “I remembered that. I was just waiting for you to sweep to my rescue.”

“Twist them three times to the left and then press the catch on the side.” There’s a short whine of light and then the net has a hole large enough for someone small and acrobatic to slip through. Liam swings the free end of the rope towards Louis’s reaching hand. “Come on,” he says, and pulls.

He breaks Louis’s fall; they end up tangled together, sprawled over the slate. An alarm starts in the distance and they freeze, Louis’s knee between Liam’s thighs and Liam’s hand wrapped around Louis’s bicep. The alarm dies down, moving off, and Liam starts to breathe again. Carefully, he and Louis collect themselves and stand up, only touching each other every so often for balance on the slope of the roof. When they’re totally separate, though, Liam feels Louis grab his hand. He looks over and Louis nods at the roof ahead, close enough for them to reach.

Holding hands makes sense, Liam thinks. Liam is fast; better for them to stay together.

They run across the roofs until they come across a gap too big to jump. After that they dash through back alleys and dimly-lit streets, slowing down to a walk when they think they’re far enough away that the risk of attracting attention seems worse than the risk of getting caught.

They’re still holding hands. Liam tries to ignore the fact that he’s not ignoring it.

“A net,” he finally says, as the events of the night sink in, and Louis squeezes his hand and laughs.

-

They don’t find out anything that night, but twenty-four hours and one hundred and twenty-seven miles later they find out, at the expense of someone trying to kill them, that Baasholz has a timeshare in a secret anti-Swedish island off the coast of Finland. It should be funny; it’s ridiculous even thinking about it, but Liam gets grazed by a bullet and he thinks for a horrifying second that Louis has been hit, and he doesn’t feel much like laughing.

-

Louis waits until they’re each in their bed on the train to Finland the next night, the light almost gone and shadows swept across the room, before he asks, “Why didn’t you kill him?”

 _I did_ , Liam almost says, because he shot at least two people in that warehouse, both of them trying to shoot him and Louis. He doesn’t think that’s what Louis is talking about, though; he remembers the curious look Louis gave him at the beginning of the evening, when a guard had a gun trained on them and Liam had knocked him out with Niall’s memory-erasing-gas and locked him in a box made of storage pallets.

Liam’s not sure what to say. He can’t tell if Louis is chiding or just curious. “What do you mean?”

“You could’ve killed him. You had a gun, you’re a good shot. It would’ve been simpler, but you didn’t.”

Liam sighs and pulls the thin blankets further up around his shoulders. “I don’t want to kill people just because it’s simpler. I mean, sometimes they're shooting at me and I sort of have to, but it seems awful to kill people just because they’re in my way.”

He doesn’t — some of the other agents scare him, a little. And maybe this is why Liam isn’t a double-oh, and why he won’t be, why Zayn worries about him going out in the field. His job is bigger than him, and he knows agents sometimes have to do whatever it takes in order to complete the mission and protect his country. He just doesn’t want to be one of those agents who think that killing is the best solution because they’re good at it and it’s easier than thinking up a different plan. He doesn’t want to feel like he’s good at his job just because he can hit someone in the heart and walk away.

The room is silent for a moment, just the steady rumble of the moving train. Liam thinks that’s the end of it until Louis abruptly says, “Shove over.”

“What?” Liam asks, and then Louis is swinging down from the top bunk and sliding in next to Liam, a long line of warmth against Liam’s right side.

“Your bunk is more comfortable,” Louis says.

“It is _not_. They’re exactly the same.”

“How would you know?” Louis asks, but when Liam tries to crawl out of bed, Louis wraps an arm around his waist and refuses to let go.

“How’m I supposed to see if you’re right if you won’t let me go up there?” Liam asks reasonably.

Louis doesn’t so much sigh as just blow loudly into Liam’s ear. “What are you even doing here?”

“Are we asking the question game?” Liam asks wryly, flashing back to primary school. He wonders what Louis was like back then. A terror, probably. The world’s most adorable terror. “Because you claimed the top bunk? Because we have a mission?”

“No,” Louis says, mostly into Liam’s jaw. “What are you even doing here, working for MI6? Half of what spies do is just lie and kill people, and as far as I can tell you try to do both as little as possible. And I would know, I lie like breathing.”

Liam turns his head, focusing on the dark shadows making up the wall. He can’t say he’s entirely surprised; everyone’s asked him some variation on this question at one point or another, all in different tones of voice. Management asked it through an intercom, with Liam sat in an empty room trying to show them that they needed to hire him. 003 shouted it, furious, in the middle of a gunfight, and Liam’s only response was to warn him about the man sneaking up on his left. Niall had asked with nothing more than friendly curiosity, back when they’d barely known each other, and Liam gave him the pleasant edited version, nothing particularly remarkable.

Zayn had asked a few months before he transferred to the home office, on a night when they were drunk enough to actually discuss it, and Liam told him the truth. He’d tell Niall too, if Niall asked now. Liam likes being honest with his friends.

It’s not that Louis’s question isn’t valid.

“Did you know I almost qualified for the Olympics?” he asks the quiet darkness in front of him. “I ran track in school. I wasn’t fast enough, just barely. But our team went to France at the end of the season anyway, for an exhibition meet. One morning I went on a run outside the hotel, and when I got back the entire building was locked down. The power had gone out. I couldn’t open the door.”

He hadn’t been supposed to go out without at least one of the chaperones, but he’d left early, before anyone had been up. It was easier to turn things over in his head when he was alone. He’d been so worried when he got back and couldn’t get in that they’d do a head count and be terrified when they found him missing.

And then he’d heard the shots.

“There were people on the roof with guns. They shot down a helicopter.” He closes his eyes for a second; it’s been eight years, and the memory isn’t quite as clear anymore, overlaid with other helicopters, Cobras and Pumas and Hinds, projected velocity and explosion force. Every time he remembers, the crash seems simultaneously closer and farther away, like he should’ve done more but couldn’t. “I started running towards it —”

Louis pinches his side. Liam’s eyes fly open. “You did _what_?”

“I wanted to help!” Liam says, a little defensive. “What if there were people trapped in it?”

“Liam. There were people shooting at it.”

In his defense, that had seemed slightly less important at the time. “Well, it exploded before I got there.” Louis inhales behind him, and Liam hurries to continue before he can say anything. “Look, it’s not important. Anyway, there were two agents who’d jumped out and they stopped this man from blowing up the hotel, and they turned out to be from the Agency. And they helped people, you know, they saved people. And I thought, well, maybe there are more things I can do for England than run track.”

That’s the short version, anyway. The long version is two hours of terror and trying to be helpful anyway, showing the lady agent where the basement of the hotel was so she could defuse the bombs while the male agent went off to steal a motorcycle and confront the bomber. There was something about technology piracy; Liam had never heard the full story, never understood it. And then when he’d finally gotten back to his tour group, they’d yelled at him for leaving without permission, as if his entire world, all of his goals, hadn’t changed in the middle of a Saturday morning.

Louis sighs against the back of his neck. “And you say I’m reckless.”

“You are,” Liam says, but he’s feeling too peaceful right now to continue that debate, drifting in the tired, satisfied blur of days on the move. “So I applied seven times, and they finally let me in.”

He hadn’t been a particularly good agent, at first. Sporty, and his hand-eye coordination was good, but he’d had no idea what to do with himself or a gun. He could think on his feet, but not defuse a bomb. He was good under pressure, but he couldn’t lie without blushing. But he made himself better, spent hours in training and at the gun range, because he refused to let himself be even mediocre when it could mean the difference between saving someone and losing someone. He’d been about nineteen, at that point.

“There are other ways to serve your country,” Louis says quietly, and Liam finally shifts to look at him, their noses just barely brushing. The only light in their room comes from the weak moon outside the moving window, tinging the edges of Louis’s hair silver and shadowing his face.

“Could you do something else?” he asks, a little surprised. “Knowing the things that are happening out there? If I’d not been on that trip, I’d still have no idea anything happened. I don’t think I could stand knowing that so many people were in danger and not even trying to help.” Louis doesn’t say anything, and Liam abruptly feels a blush of self-consciousness. “Why did you, then?”

He feels Louis shrug more than he sees it. “I got recruited. They offered me enough money that I’d be able to pay for all my sisters to go to uni, so I thought, might as well. At least I was good at it.”

For a second, Liam is stuck on the thought of Louis having sisters. Do they look like him? Does he come back to see them at the end of missions? Has he braided their hair? Did they dress him up when they were little, play with nail polish and glittery eye shadow like Ruthie and Nicola had?

It’s hard to banish the image of four girls jumping on Louis and demanding to ride on his back, all of them with the same brilliant grin. “But it’s got to be more than that,” Liam says.

They breathe together for a moment. “Maybe you’re right,” Louis says eventually, his voice barely audible. “If I knew something bad was going on, I’d want to stop it.”

“See?” Liam says into a yawn. They haven’t had much sleep recently, what with all the frantic running around trying to get out of town. “Told you.”

“But what if something bad was going on and you didn’t know about it?” Louis asks. Liam forces his eyes to stay open; he focuses on Louis’s face, trying to make the barely-lit darkness resolve into Louis’s familiar features. Louis is hard enough to read in the light.

“Then I wouldn’t know it was going on,” he says, slowly. He’s not really sure he understands what Louis means.

“But you’d want to.”

Liam frowns. “Yes? Wouldn’t you? If you don’t know there’s a problem then how are you supposed to fix it?” He tries to look at Louis, but Louis presses his face against Liam’s neck so Liam can’t see. His breath whispers across Liam’s adam’s apple.

“But what if they’re hiding it because they don’t want anyone to find out,” Louis says, which, well, yes, that is generally what most criminals do, given that in general people don’t like getting arrested.

Liam is too tired for this. “Then they’ll slip up eventually and someone will notice and start investigating. Nobody can lie forever.” He presses his cheek against Louis’s hair and pretends he isn’t worrying. “Lou, what’s this about?”

“Nothing,” Louis murmurs into the skin of Liam’s neck, just below his jaw, lips catching where he’s starting to grow stubble. “I need to call H tomorrow.”

H is Louis’s handler, someone he’s mentioned in passing a few times with fondness but not much detail. Liam’s not sure what prompted this, but Louis would know if he needs to check in.

“Alright,” he says, hoping it sounds comforting, or at least steady. “Lou, whatever it is, it’ll be okay. I’ve got you.”

Louis jerks his head up, narrowly avoiding hitting Liam in the face, and then they’re so close together they’re sharing the same breaths. The cold tip of Louis’s nose brushes Liam’s cheek.

He wonders if maybe he’s said something wrong, from Louis’s reaction, but in the warm drowsiness of his mind it’s nothing that isn’t true. Louis’s got to know that Liam will help him, if something’s wrong. Liam can’t imagine _not_ helping.

“We should be friends after this,” he says without thinking about it. “I know I’m—” he yawns again. “—I’m a stick in the mud, but. I like you.” They’ve been together for eleven days, travel and fights and nets and the graze on Liam’s arm that Louis carefully bandaged, and then after that Louis might be gone. Liam doesn’t like that idea. Maybe he could get Louis’s number, take him to go get dinner with Zayn and Niall. They would like him, if they don’t already know him. Well, Niall probably does. Niall knows everyone.

“I like you too,” Louis says to the corner of Liam’s mouth, and Liam closes his eyes and smiles and asks, “Can we go to sleep now?”

“Yeah, alright,” Louis says, and doesn’t go back to his own bunk. Liam doesn’t really mind.

He wanted to say something else, what was it — something that’s been lingering at the back of his mind, something important... Oh, that’s right. “I bet you’re a great brother,” he murmurs, and feels Louis’s arm tighten around his waist before he slides into sleep.

-

They’ve gone to too many parties on this mission. It’s exhausting, although to be entirely honest, Liam actually prefers most parties when he’s not being himself. He thinks he might be more interesting as Liam Rogers than Liam Payne. Louis says that’s ridiculous, but Louis is interesting even when he’s pretending to be boring, so what does he know.

They’re sitting at the bar, looking for the members of Baasholz’s secret anti-Swedish cult, when a voice from behind them says, “Louis,” sounding pleased. Liam turns around to see a guy about their age, his eyes almost covered by his curly hair. “Been a while.”

Louis smiles, and Liam’s stomach tenses. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Harold.”

Harold shrugs. “You know me.”

“I like to think so,” Louis says, his smile turning secretive for a moment. Liam is so far at sea he can’t even see the shore. Is this someone who knows Louis as Stark, or another identity? Is he also a spy? “Harry, this is Liam Rogers. Liam, this is Harry Styles. Harry’s a bit of a professional layabout, he just sort of shows up places and knows people.”

“Sounds like a friend of mine,” Liam says, thinking of Niall and his inexplicable ability to make friends with everyone in any given vicinity.

Harry frowns at Liam like he’s trying to make him out. “Oh really?” he asks politely.

It doesn’t seem like a question that really requires an answer, and Liam is trying to figure out whether he should say something or not, whether he’s supposed to be Liam Rogers or not — Liam Rogers wouldn’t even notice that Harry didn’t seem interested, he’d just keep talking about his friends — when Louis saves him by asking,”What have you been up to, anyway? Last time I saw you, you were with those radio people.”

Harry turns his frown on Louis. Liam’s beginning to wonder if he misjudged and it’s just Harry’s natural expression. “Taylor had a few shows. Louis, can I talk to you?”

Oh. This — sounds like a conversation that Liam shouldn’t be around for. “I’m going to go get some food,” Liam says quickly, and escapes. Some of the anti-Swedes are by the cheese trays; he can try to regain his sense of being Liam Rogers, and go talk to them.

-

Louis and Harry disappear from the party. Liam only notices because he’s alert, of course, and an alert agent always tracks the movements of the people in the room. Besides, he’s busy listening to conversations without participating more than necessary. It helps to keep going back to the snack tables; nobody expects him to talk with food in his mouth. It’s too nice a party for that, even if it is full of strangely angry Scandinavians.

Harry comes back alone, though, and Louis is still gone — calling the mysterious H, maybe, or breaking into air vents without Liam. This is the price to pay for being polite and not interrupting, Liam supposes.

He sits at one of the tables, listening to a woman behind him complain about IKEA, but right as he starts to reach for a strawberry a weight drops into his lap. Suddenly, he has a mouthful of hair.

“I don’t know if I like you yet,” Harry announces, taking a sip from his champagne flute. He’s swaying slightly, even sitting down, but he doesn’t look like he’s frowning anymore. “I’ve known him forever, you know. You’d better not be mean to him.”

“I don’t think I could be,” Liam says, just one more example of the thoughtless honesty Louis seems to inspire in him. Liam is beginning to worry that being around Louis makes him even worse at being a spy. He just wants to get to the island, already. He wants to confront Baasholz and defuse any bombs that are lying around. Those are the simple parts. He’s _good_ at those bits. He’s not good at figuring out why Management isn’t letting him get out to the island yet, or why he’s so upset that Louis isn’t back, or what it is that Harry is talking about. He just wants to do his job, that’s all.

Harry glares at Liam’s face from about two inches away and then shifts back, his face clearing. “I think I almost see what he’s talking about.”

“What who’s talking about?” Liam asks. “Louis?”

"Someone else," Harry says, and kisses Liam. For a moment, Liam is so surprised that he kisses back.

He pulls away after a second, as soon as he collects himself. Maybe two seconds. Possibly three. “What?” he asks.

“If you’re mean to him I’ll kill you,” Harry says, standing up. “But if he likes you, then I probably will too.” He presses another quick kiss to Liam’s lips, adds, “Sorry, he’s going to be awful tonight,” and disappears into the crowd.

Liam doesn’t sit staring after him, because Liam is a professional. He’s very professional. He’s excellent at... professioning.

He’s completely screwed and he doesn’t even understand _why_.

-

“Why aren’t they letting us go to the island already?” Louis grumbles, pacing around their hotel room. “It’s like they’re _trying_ to make sure that we’re completely useless.”

Liam wishes Harry had been lying about Louis being awful, but Louis has been like this all night, ever since they got back from the party. The scraps of information Liam picked up just ticked him off, because all the evidence points to Baasholz and his friends launching a major offensive in three days, and until they get word from MI6, they’re officially grounded.

“They know what they’re doing,” Liam says, because somehow despite all his training he’s never really learned how to sit tight and not step on landmines.

Louis snorts. “Of course you would say that.”

“Excuse me?” Liam asks, raising his eyebrows.

“You’re so — why do you _believe_ in them so much? How can you just assume that the orders you’re getting are always right?”

This is beginning to sound dangerous. “Louis, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Louis snaps, throwing his phone across the room. This doesn’t seem particularly fine to Liam, even if the phones they get are sturdy enough to be run over by a truck and still survive.

“Louis,” Liam says, stepping closer and grabbing Louis’s wrists. Louis tries to jerk away, but Liam’s got strong fingers and several pounds on him; Louis isn’t going to break his grip unless he works a little harder than he’s doing right now. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

Louis looks up at that and Liam catches his eye, willing him to let Liam help. He hates seeing Louis like this, like he’s trapped in something he can’t see past.

Louis lets out a deep breath and slumps forward, all the fight draining out of him. He rests his forehead on Liam’s shoulder and mutters, “Bad news from home.”

Liam’s learned over the past two weeks that Louis likes physical affection, but their hands are trapped between them; he can’t pat Louis awkwardly on the back or hug him properly. Instead he leans his head against Louis’s, his cheek against Louis’s hair, and settles for rubbing circles on the inside of Louis’s wrists. “Is there anything I can do?”

“You can’t fix everything, Liam,” Louis mutters.

No. Liam learned that, the first time a civilian died during one of his missions, or the night when Zayn’s parents called to tell him his grandfather passed away and he spent three hours crying on Liam before collapsing, exhausted, on the sofa. Sometimes Liam can’t fix anything at all.

“I can try,” he says, and Louis groans, bites at Liam’s shoulder.

Well, then. If he’s biting, it probably means that he’s alright enough for Liam to carefully let go. He rests his hands on Louis’ hips instead, because Louis’s head is still on his shoulder and it would feel odd to just have his hands hanging by his sides.

“You’re the worst,” Louis complains, his voice muffled in Liam’s shirt. “No, Harry’s the worst. I can’t believe he kissed you.”

He’d sort of expected Louis to change the subject — Louis always seems to edge away from conversations when they get too personal on his part — but Liam can honestly say that he didn’t expect _that_ to be the next thing out of Louis’s mouth. “What?”

“He kissed you,” Louis lifts his head to repeat, still sounding grumpy. Liam reconsiders all the interactions he’s seen Louis and Harry have, so far. It would explain a lot, if they were together.

Oh, crap, did Liam accidentally kiss his mate’s boyfriend? That’s not good. “I’m so sorry, Louis, I didn’t realise you two were — he was really worried about you, he —”

He cuts himself off because Louis is laughing, loud and a little bit cracked around the edges. “You think I’m annoyed because of Harry?” He nudges Liam backwards, one step, and then another. “Liam, I’m annoyed because he got to kiss you before I did. And he definitely did it on purpose, too, that dick.”

Because — what? That’s — oh, Liam thinks. _Oh_.

“You wanted to kiss me?” he asks, his voice smaller than he tries to make it.

“Trust me,” Louis says ruefully, “it’s really not in past tense.”

 _Trust me_. It’s one of those phrases that normal people seem to use without particularly meaning it, but it’s more than that for spies. How are you supposed to know whom to trust, when both of you lie for a living? Can you trust someone if they might get a better offer the next day?

“I do,” he says quietly, and it’s stupid, but Liam’s always been just a bit stupid about people. “Trust you, I mean.”

Louis stares at him for a split second, his face still, then grabs the front of Liam’s shirt with both hands and hauls him down to kiss him.

Louis’s mouth is warm against Liam’s, and he’s intelligent and infuriating and wonderful and Liam had no idea how much he wanted this until right now. In hindsight, he thinks he might have wanted this since the first time he felt Louis’s hand down his chest; the way he obsessed over Louis afterwards seems different now, tinged with a need he never even recognised. He thinks he’s just making up for lost time, then, when he pulls Louis’s hips closer and kisses back.

Their hotel room is small. It barely takes any time for Louis to shove Liam back until he falls against the bed, hooking his legs around Louis’s so they both go down together.

“Liam,” Louis groans, moving from Liam’s mouth to his neck. He bites down, and oh, Liam should have expected that. He shudders, rolling their hips together. “Liam, god, wanted this so bad, wanted you —”

“So have me,” Liam says, regaining enough presence of mind to slip his hand down to unbutton Louis’s jeans. They can go slower next time he thinks; right now he just wants to touch Louis, wants to get him sweaty and watch him shake apart, just as overwhelmed as Liam’s been every day since they met.

He laughs abruptly, realising something. “I don’t even know your last name,” he says at Louis’s questioning look, ducking his head to nip quickly at Louis’s collarbone. “And you’ve known mine since the beginning.”

Louis’s own laugh is more of an exhale as he tips his head back for a second, his eyes closing. “Tomlinson. Louis Tomlinson.”

“Tomlinson. I like it,” Liam says thoughtfully. “I think you should take your trousers off, Louis Tomlinson.”

“I think I’ve been trying to get you naked since the second time we met, Liam Payne, so you’d better hurry up and get on with it,” Louis retorts, and for that Liam has to roll him over and kiss him again.

They do manage to get naked, eventually. For the second round.

-

When Liam wakes up the next morning, he finally understands why other agents sleep around during missions. He feels _amazing_ , clear-headed and relaxed like he hasn’t been for the past two weeks. He kisses Louis just because he can, and when he tries to roll out of bed Louis snakes an arm around his waist and pulls him back in.

He gets out of bed ten minutes later than he intended, that morning. He thinks it’s worth it.

Even better, later he gets word from Management for them to head to Oulu, where there’s a Niall-designed invisible helicopter waiting for them to take it to the island. For the sake of a spontaneous exit strategy, Liam thinks, and can’t help grinning to himself. Niall-designed and Louis-approved.

When they’re on the train, Liam’s phone beeps again. This is the most action it’s seen on the entire trip; only calls or texts placed directly from the home office can go through. Neither Management nor Teasdale are particularly long-winded, though, so he doesn’t think it can be a second text from them, not when the first was so short.

For a moment, he hopes that it’s Niall, texting to give him extra instructions for flying the helicopter or to tease him about not crashing it into any fjords. It’s not, though. Instead, it says ROGUE AGENT - DO NOT TRUST, APPREHEND ASAP, right above a picture of Louis.

Louis looks over at him, smiling, and catches the look on Liam’s face. They’ve both got their guns drawn within ten seconds.

“Liam,” Louis says desperately. Liam couldn’t take it if Louis sounded calm right now, but he thinks the raw edges in Louis’s voice might be even worse. If Louis sounds wrecked then it means he cared, unless he’s just the best actor Liam’s ever seen. “Liam, you have to listen to me —”

“Why?” Liam spits. “You told me yourself, you lie like breathing.”

“Not about this! Not about anything, Liam, I didn’t lie to you about anything except working for MI6.”

“That’s a pretty damn big exception,” Liam says, glaring, and Louis’s eyes widen. “I _trusted_ you.”

“You _can_ trust me,” Louis insists, his words getting faster and faster. “Management is corrupt, Liam, I used to work for MI6, I used to be a double-oh and you’re right, nobody can lie forever. Nothing was adding up. Haven’t you noticed the way all your assignments recently seem to end by taking over really profitable organizations and killing the owners? They’re using —”

“Shut up!” Liam shouts. At least he’s not crying, he thinks; not only would it be humiliating, it would also ruin his aim. He’s not sure he’s ever felt this miserable.

Zayn, he realises, Zayn was right to be suspicious in the first place, and now Liam’s never going to be able to take Louis out to a bar and watch him make Zayn and Niall laugh.

“You knew my name,” he says slowly. “You’ve always known my name, field agents never know each other’s names. And — Lane, Stark. I thought it was just coincidence, but you did that, didn't you? What was this, was — was this a _game_ to you?”

Louis’s wince is as good as an answer. “Liam, please,” he says, his voice quiet. Liam thinks about the two of them curled up in a too-small bunk, talking in hushed voices until they fell asleep tangled together, and he wants to — something. Vomit, possibly. Shout. Curl up in his bed at home and not leave for a week. “I didn’t lie to you. I wouldn’t. I thought you were a stick in the mud but you’re not, you’re amazing. You care about people and you work so hard and you apologize for things you shouldn’t, and I thought you were faking at first because I didn’t know how any spy could be so real.”

For a long moment, there are only the sounds of their breathing and the train engine, the wheels humming along as they roll down the track.

“Please believe me,” Louis says, closing his eyes, and Liam could shoot now. Liam should shoot now; the shoulder or knee would disable him long enough for Liam to turn him in.

“How many exits are there,” Liam says through gritted teeth, and Louis’s eyes fly open.

“Liam—”

Something feels hot and angry inside Liam’s brain, like a live wire or a lightning strike. “Just go!” he shouts, and hopes he’ll never see Louis again and wishes he could see Louis every day. “Five. Four. Three.”

Louis’s cufflinks flash and he’s out the window, a small figure rolling down the hill beside the train tracks. Liam shoots after him once, deliberately wide, before the train curves out of sight and Louis is gone.

Two. One, he thinks, and drops his gun on the floor.

-

He finishes the mission by himself.


End file.
